Players getting stronger with age

[Brian Towers]

Really? You've made no progress? That's also what the grading record shows?

It shows I'm about a hundred points down on my peak, I believe, so your point eludes me.

Wonderful! I just love it when somebody who should know better trots out the old strawman. Really, Justin, the facts are so easy to check!.

According to your FIDE profile you were born in 1965 so are in your early 50's. Your ELO peaked at 2163 in early to mid 2008 when you were in your early 40's! Nowhere near the 20's you were talking about earlier, by the way. By November 2010 you were already down to 2087.

Looking at my profile, I came in to the rankings within a whisker of my peak at 1917 in early 2007, then stayed roughly there, with a blip that interestingly matches the financial crisis, until November 2010. Now I'm down below 1800 where I've been since 2013. Also interesting is that my best result came in February 2013 when I beat somebody rated 2247 at the time when my rating was 1798 (i.e. within a whisker of what it is now). Looking at his profile he peaked at 2360 in January 2009. He is 15 years younger than me. He too seems to have settled about 100 points below his peak.

Bit of a pattern emerging there, eh, Justin? Three very different players, different ages, different playing strengths, displaying very similar profile patterns. I wonder if that could possibly say more about the foibles of the rating system during that period than the players' playing strengths?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Bit of a pattern emerging there, eh, Justin? Three very different players, different ages, different playing strengths, displaying very similar profile patterns. I wonder if that could possibly say more about the foibles of the rating system during that period than the players' playing strengths?

Nice analysis, Brian. Could you run the rule over my rating history and see what you come up with?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"After 4 decades of trying I have finally got into the 180s - is it due to grade inflation, experience or luck?"

It's partly that you keep playing me!

When I was playing 40 years ago, 120s and below seemed to just blunder pieces. Nowadays, everybody seems (usually!) to avoid that. I am certainly playing with more imagination now, although the blunders have increased, partly due to the imagination and partly tiredness probably.

[JustinHorton]

[

According to your FIDE profile you were born in 1965 so are in your early 50's. Your ELO peaked at 2163 in early to mid 2008 when you were in your early 40's! Nowhere near the 20's you were talking about earlier, by the way.

Indeed not, but I didn't refer to my twenties in relation to my Elo rating, a fact I would invite you to check. (In fact, to my recollection I was well into my thirties before I possessed one.)

[Brian Towers]

According to your FIDE profile you were born in 1965 so are in your early 50's. Your ELO peaked at 2163 in early to mid 2008 when you were in your early 40's! Nowhere near the 20's you were talking about earlier, by the way.

Indeed not, but I didn't refer to my twenties in relation to my Elo rating, a fact I would invite you to check. (In fact, to my recollection I was well into my thirties before I possessed one.)

I'm afraid your memory is failing you, Justin.
This is the full context with just the later, waffling/justifying part of my response removed for brevity.

Towards the end of his life, Tal, in a thought experiment, famously said that he would slaughter the Young World Champion Tal in a match.

Do you reckon he would though, or is that just an illusion we start suffering from in middle-age? I know that when I've occasionally looked at games I played in my twenties I've often thought well, I don't think I'd make that mistake nowadays, and I suppose my store of knowledge must have expanded along with my experience, but on the other hand speed of thought, capacity to recollect, level of concentration and so on must all be less than they were. Ultimately I'm not sure objective evidence is in our favour here.

Really? You've made no progress? That's also what the grading record shows?

You replied to this with the {unnecessarily aggressive term deleted by moderator} about your FIDE rating to argue that you had indeed gone backwards.

Since you dodged the question about what the grading record shows, let's have a look, shall we?

ECF records begin for you in 1994 when you were at the tail end of your 20's. Your grading was 167. In the next 3 years it was 171, 178, 174 before a gap. Later you had a period out of the country before coming back (or at least resuming ECF graded chess) in late 2014. Your next few gradings were 182, 182, 185, 185, 175. In other words a bit stronger than you were in your late 20's, early 30's.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

ECF records begin for you in 1994 when you were at the tail end of your 20's. Your grading was 167. In the next 3 years it was 171, 178, 174 before a gap. Later you had a period out of the country before coming back (or at least resuming ECF graded chess) in late 2014. Your next few gradings were 182, 182, 185, 185, 175. In other words a bit stronger than you were in your late 20's, early 30's.

To be fair, the ECF grade adjustment took place between those two periods (in 2009?)
I'd say that grading history indicates very little change in playing strength at all.

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.php?file=help&

Remember that grades earlier than July 2009 are Old Grades. For the switch to New Grades, see the New Grades page.

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/new_grades.php

Question: was the effect of New Grades long-lasting, or at some point has some equilibrium been restored, or was the effect different over time? If someone (as here) resumes playing chess in 2014, should the change in 2009 be taken into account?

[Brian Towers]

Remember that grades earlier than July 2009 are Old Grades. For the switch to New Grades, see the New Grades page.

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/new_grades.php

Question: was the effect of New Grades long-lasting, or at some point has some equilibrium been restored, or was the effect different over time? If someone (as here) resumes playing chess in 2014, should the change in 2009 be taken into account?

The New Grades page is a fascinating read although it has to be read carefully.

Perhaps the most important bit is this:

updated 30.8.2009

The information was accurate in 2009. Time sensitive information now less so.

Here are some of the important bits which might go some way to answering your questions

Grading has been around for about half a century. The idea behind the BCF/ECF system is that a player graded (say) 10 points higher than his opponent would be expected to score 6/10 against that opponent. (Expected percentage score = 50 plus the difference in grades.)

The original lists were quite small, comprising only the strongest players in the country, but within a very few years it was noticed that grades, for no identifiable reason, were gradually slipping. Sir Richard Clarke, who introduced the system, realised that it should be monitored carefully and felt it ought to be corrected if necessary every 4 years. Unfortunately he had not today’s means of analysing data. The number of players has increased enormously since his day, but the basic system has been largely untouched.

So, regarding your first question, the system as originally designed needs to be tweaked something like once every four years otherwise discrepancies will increase and become significant. It is eight years since the reset. It should be due for its second tweak. I've not heard anything about a first tweak due in 2013. The equilibrium you asked about must be slipping again.

There may be several separate reasons for grades to inflate, deflate or stretch out, but the main one is very simple: if we don’t play lots of games against opponents who also play lots of games, the list is bound to become gradually stretched. This has been demonstrated by mathematical modelling, but the results cannot easily be summarised in a meaningful way. We are looking at ways of making this information available to those who are interested.

We have now been able to review the system and restore the old standard that a 10 point grade difference gives an expectation of 6/10 and so on. The review has covered much ground. Most grades have changed quite a lot, because the stretching goes back a long way. The effect of the review is the same as would have been achieved by gentle corrections every few years.

You're one of those people who plays lots of games so your grading is probably more accurate than most.

The process of review will continue so that any future drifting can be corrected.

Hmmm. Has it? Perhaps a question for the grading officer.

On a lighter note:

FIDE Conversion
FIDE = New ECF x 8 + 650

Cue outrage from Brian. 162 ECF = 1946 FIDE not 1788. Those thieving bar stewards have stolen almost 160 of my ELO points! Erm, not quite. In late 2009 (when this page was published) your FIDE was 1917, comfortably within the margin of error comparing 2009 with 2017. Still it is more evidence of the great FIDE deflation that happened a few years later.

[Nick Burrows]

Richard Desmedt has his peak rating in 2012 aged 67

[Christopher Kreuzer]

You're one of those people who plays lots of games so your grading is probably more accurate than most.

Yes, but that is my ECF grade, not my FIDE rating.

In late 2009 (when this page was published) your FIDE was 1917, comfortably within the margin of error comparing 2009 with 2017. Still it is more evidence of the great FIDE deflation that happened a few years later.

What about the rest of my FIDE rating history (he asks, anxiously, still not wanting to create an account so I can view it myself)...? (Well, I will one day, but not any time soon).

[Brian Towers]

OK, Christopher.

You have a very flat profile. (I hope I don't sound too much like an astrologist or palmist) You came into the system in July 2007 with a rating of 1946. You had a low of 1907 in late 2009 and a high of 1995 in the second half of last year. You did experience the common dip from 1977 in late 2012 down to 1908 in late 2013 but you have picked up steadily since then.

Your profile looks neither like that of a fast improving junior nor that of an old fart trying grimly to maintain his level. Rather it looks like that of a steadily improving youngish player.

Edit: For reference your game count is:
2007 - 12
2008 - 11
2009 - 7
2010 - 12
2011 - 24
2012 - 16
2013 - 32
2014 - 14
2015 - 11
2016 - 9

[JustinHorton]

You replied to this with the BS.

You're out of order, Brian. Everybody else on this thread has come looking for a friendly discussion. You've come looking for a fight and it's not acceptable.

I'm happy to defend anything I've said, albeit less happy to be expected to defend an argument I haven't made. But let's start by observing some basic internet courtesy. Either that or don't bother.

[Roger de Coverly]

Question: was the effect of New Grades long-lasting, or at some point has some equilibrium been restored, or was the effect different over time? If someone (as here) resumes playing chess in 2014, should the change in 2009 be taken into account?

The practical effect of who I would still describe as tampering with the grading system for the sake of it, was that the average player (both by mean and median) of around 115 was elevated to around 135 or more. Those at the top of the domestic chain, Mark and Keith say, were held at the 235 level. So the effect was to shrink the distance between the average player and the top domestic players from around 120 points to around 100. For players graded around 175, the effect is therefore a gain of around 10. Messing around with the way that grades for juniors were calculated also had an effect.

I don't regard my recent 193 as nearly as good as my 190 of 1975-76. In relative terms 190 in 1976 left only a handful of players more than 40 points above me, as compared to the scores for a contemporary 190. That said, where I play the same openings as in 1975, I can play them faster and retain the thread in the middle game better.

[NickFaulks]

(he asks, anxiously, still not wanting to create an account so I can view it myself)...? (Well, I will one day, but not any time soon).

I have many, would you like one?

[NickFaulks]

You're out of order, Brian.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who uses the ECF grading system to prove anything over the long term has lost the argument before they start.

[MartinCarpenter]

I do think Roger is right - basically the grading revaluation did have long term effects, but also the inflation from the regrading fed further up the food chain than was originally envisaged.

I was meant to go from ~170 to ~180, but ~185-190 feels much more like par. The really strong players round York chess have definitely all gone up a bit too.